The maps below show the geography of the graduate labour market based upon the 2011 Census for local authority areas in England & Wales; similar data is available for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Where do graduates work?

The map below shows the percentage of people employed in each local authority area in England and Wales (in March 2011) who had a degree-level qualification or above. Just over half of areas have between 25% and 35% of the workforce qualified at degree level, with much higher rates of degree qualification in the south east, London and university cities.

Source: 2011 Census

It is also possible to map this on a granular basis within cities or local authority areas. This map shows the percentage of people in employment with a degree, by place of work, for ‘middle layer super output areas’ (MSOAs) in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) area. Graduates in employment are concentrated in the more affluent south of the city.

Where are the graduate jobs?

Below is a map of the percentage of people employed (in March 2011) whose main job was a ‘graduate occupation’, using the Elias / Purcell classification (see notes below), by local authority area of workplace. Again, the majority of LA areas have between 25% and 35% of occupations as graduate occupations, with larger percentages in London and the South East. University cities again feature prominently (Aberystwyth, Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, York…).

Source: 2011 Census; this provides only minor group (three digit) SOC codes, so the above analysis has been done by aggregating the EP graduate indicator classifier from unit code to minor group SOC.

Similarly, this can be disaggregated within cities - see below a map of the GMCA area which shows a similar pattern to that for graduates in employment.

The relationship between graduates and graduate jobs

As expected, there is a close relationship between graduates in employment and graduate occupations, though the number of graduate occupations is typically lower than the number of graduates in employment. The areas to the top right are central London boroughs plus Oxford and Cambridge, illustrating how these areas have ‘pulled away’ from the rest in terms of the intensity of their graduate labour markets. The outlier to the bottom of the chart is the Isles of Scilly.

Source: 2011 Census

It is also possible in principle to identify the percentage of graduate jobs in each area being done by people with degrees, and vice-versa (though doing this accurately may require access to secure microdata).

Again, the relationship between employed graduates and people working in graduate occupations is very close for areas within the GMCA area.

Notes on ‘graduate job’ classifiers

Elias and Purcell (2013)

Used by ONS for their annual publication ‘Graduates in the labour market’. Based on SOC2010 (nine major groups, 369 unit groups). Major groups are “are similar in terms of the qualifications, training, skills and experience commonly associated with the competent performance of work tasks” (ONS SOC2010 guidance)

(From G&H description) used qualitative judgements based on job titles within each unit occupational code. A expert judgement based on skills requirements. Three types of skills identified: expert, orchestration, communication. If threshold score met in any one of these, identified as a graduate job (of a particular subtype).

On this classification, graduate jobs appear mainly in the top three major occupational groups of the SOC, with some in groups four (administrative) and six (caring).

Green and Henseke (2014)

Classifies jobs based upon data from the Skills and Employment Survey 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2012. Use measures about skills utilisation on five dimensions: whether it requires a degree; degree requirements in similar (3 unit family) occupations; generic skills intensity (literacy, numeracy, communications, planning); use of computers; formal training. Use linear probability model and k-median clustering to derive two groups.

On this classification, graduate jobs only appear in the top three major occupational groups of the SOC.

Claim that their classifier is better based on the fact that it models wages better than the E&P classification and identifies a larger wage return to having a degree. They also show that graduates in non-graduate jobs are less likely to report using their skills, than in the E&P classification (a higher ‘skills-usage’ penalty for ‘mismatched graduates’).

They report that graduate jobs rose from 32% to 40% of the British labour market between 1997/2002 and 2006/2012.

O*NET classification (https://www.onetcenter.org/overview.html)

Based on Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard Occupational Classification (867 occupations, 23 major groups) . Latest version 2018.

Latest O*NET version is 2010. Collects information about occupations in six domains: worker characteristics, worker requirements, experience requirements, occupational requirements, workforce characteristics, occupation-specific information.

Replaced previous ‘Dictionary of Occupational Titles’. Based upon surveys of incumbent workers; questionnaires very long so each worker answers one-third of the question set. Also some input from ‘occupational analysts’ to develop abilities and skills information.

Can’t find a clear ‘graduate job’ classifier (though don’t know if they would use that term in US).

Other classifiers (good review in Green and Henseke 2014):

  • G&H and E&P are both examples of skills-based classifiers
  • Supply-side classifiers - occupations where graduates predominate
  • Those occupations that command a return to higher education
  • EUROFOUND - may have a graduate job classification for EU?
  • ISCO-08 - international classification of occupations (I am not aware of a ‘graduate job’ classifier based on this)